SANTA ANA – Voters in November will be asked to consider giving the City Council its first raise in salary in more than 60 years.

Council members who this week approved the Nov. 8 ballot measure on a 6-0 vote, absent Councilman Sal Tinajero, said the salary reform was long overdue and necessary to draw a strong pool of candidates for public office.

The city charter provision adopted in 1954 set compensation at $200 per meeting for the mayor and $125 per meeting for Council members. Elsewhere, elected council members in cities of Santa Ana’s size make “significantly more,” City Attorney Sonia Carvalho said on Tuesday.

If voters approve the ballot measure in the coming general election, each City Council member – the mayor included – would make the maximum the state allows for general law cities with more than 250,000 residents: $1,000 per month. Any increase beyond that would require another vote.

The increase is “an extremely modest request,” said Mayor Pro Tem Vincent Sarmiento, adding that the time Council members devote and the compensation are “so disproportionately out of whack.”

“It’s well below minimum wage,” he said.

Councilman David Benavides, who has pushed an increase several times in his 10-year tenure, said, “Some elements of the charter were already grossly outdated, this being one of those sections.”

Serving on the City Council should be “at minimum, part-time, or a full-time position as is the case of most cities, but at least this would be a step in the right direction,” Benavides said.

Councilwoman Michele Martinez agreed the positions should be full-time, and used herself as a rare example of someone whose full-time job allows her to take on multiple responsibilities. Her role as director of Alliance for a Healthy OC is flexible, Martinez said, and allows her to participate on City Council as well as regional boards, the majority of them unpaid.

“You may not have another Council member that has the flexibility I do,” she said.

Martinez also said the staff report buried discussion on health benefits, which are the majority of Council members’ compensation.

“We should add it to the beginning instead of hide it,” she said. “I’m just disappointed that we’re not being transparent to our voters.”

The City Attorney will prepare an impartial analysis on the salary increase ask, and the City Clerk’s office will set deadlines for the public to submit arguments in favor and rebuttals.

Jessica Kwong covers Santa Ana and transportation for The Orange County Register. A Los Angeles native, Kwong grew up speaking Spanish, Cantonese and English, in that order, and has spent much of her journalism career working in Spanish-language media. She started her career at the San Francisco Chronicle and has also been a staff writer for the San Antonio Express-News, La Opinión, Time Warner Cable Sports and the San Francisco Examiner. Kwong has won awards from the National Association of Hispanic Publications, California Newspaper Publishers Association, San Francisco Peninsula Press Club and East Bay Press Club and has been a fellow for The New York Times and Hearst Newspapers. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature in Spanish and English and Mass Communications from the University of California, Berkeley.

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